The Deathless Masterpiece

I first heard the term "deathless masterpiece" as an art student. In fact the instructor who introduced the term to us, would routinely say that what we were working on wasn't a deathless masterpiece. He was giving us permission to lighten up. There we were with our little fledgling artistic egos trying, ever so hard, to impress. What we really were there to learn was how long we were going to be bad at what we were doing. We had yet to make our mistakes so we could learn from them. It's the only way to make a technique or media your own.

For the past three years I've been working in pastels. Edged out of my studio by renovations, I'd hit the road with my field kit. At this point when I pick up a certain color, I know before it touches the surface of the paper what I can make it do. Each media is like a language. To become fluent, you have to immerse yourself in it, sound funny, be giggled at & corrected. But there comes the day that you converse & express yourself gracefully. Before pastels, I was working in acrylic and before that watercolors. There was a point at which I was floating watercolor in acrylic gloss medium and glazing over acrylic in paintings. Although it's probably apt to be fugitive, the technique does give an "old Masters'" glow to a sunset. One day a reporter came to my studio to interview me and noticed reference photos on my drawing board. She kept looking over at them and then asked who took them. This seemed like a trick question, too easy- I did. She commented that they were good. I knew that, but that was the last thing I needed- another media!

It was with great trepidation that I went to the Golden Workshop. (Golden Opportunity 3/23/09) Coming out of the workshop I thought, well that was fun but none of this fits with what I'm doing now. There was this one sample board..., and I just wanted to see what I could do with it..., and well yes..., I was off to the races. (Mixed Media Merriment 4/6/09) I was placing my order for dimensional paste, crackle medium and digital ground. Suddenly I was creating texture to be glazed with acrylics and overlaying them with pastel to enhance every ridge and bump. Like a mad scientist, I made acrylic skin and fed it through my ink jet printer. Those images are then collaged into the piece. I am miles from my comfort zone. This is the dark side of the moon. I keep thinking as I work, next time I'll do this or that differently. There is no image with this post because I haven't produced the "deathless masterpiece". I have to be bad at this for awhile, but sometimes it's good to be bad.